Chaos
by Haloalkane68
Summary: Peter and Gwen's lives had been going so well until a certain somebody knocks at the door.
1. Chapter 1

'We must look crazy.'

Gwen thinks the winds are so heavy that one gust and she may go tumbling all the way down. She shuts her eyes, and then peeps through them; the pavement looks like a thin line, the cars are yellow blotches and the people are mere dots. 'Oh my god,' she closes them tight again and creeps towards Peter, holding onto his arm as firmly as she can. A helicopter passes above their heads. The sound of the rotating blades gives rise to a fresh wave of nausea that makes her stomach churn and she pulls back her legs from midair all of a sudden.

'You scared?' asks Peter, smirking.

'No,' she lies, a streak of annoyance running through her, 'it's just the perks of being a mortal.'

Peter begins with a laugh but subsequently turns it into a long phase of showy coughing even as the side of his face burns from Gwen's nasty glares. After a while, though, she cannot help but smile herself, albeit a bit nervously. That doesn't change her opinion, however. Sitting a hundred feet above the ground on the parapet of a skyscraper and suspending their legs about in the air isn't even half as enjoyable as Peter has often bragged about. She traces the craters on the concrete with her fingers, glancing down at the road every time she makes up a mind not to.

'This can't get any better,' he says.

'It's your birthday, do whatever you want,' Gwen rolls her eyes jokingly. She thinks that if she can just get past the fact that she is much affected by gravity and inertia and won't float all the way down like a bird feather if she mistakenly slips her leg and not even somebody like Peter will be able to swim through the air to catch her (physics won't allow), she might then like these fast-blowing winds on her face. But it is all Peter's fault. And his incredibly stupid ideas. After this, how is she ever going to try paragliding? It was a sort of dream, wasn't it; until he just showed her how scared she is of heights?

Gwen's hair falls over her face and tickles the nose but she never dares leave his arm to tuck them behind her ear. She looks up at the sky and as the white cottony clouds warp into amazingly weird shapes, tries to come up with a subject that doesn't concern how high the building is.

'So high school's over,' she sighs. It's not something new. It has been, like, almost a month and she has already sighed the same line for, perhaps, fifteen times.

'Yeah, now I need to search down a college and get a job.'

'You don't need a job, you're a celebrity.'

Peter narrows his eyes and stares at her, his lips twisting into a crooked smile. As another gust of wind follows, he says, 'I'm not a celebrity, just a social worker. And I think I'll have a lot of time left even after sweeping the city clean of rogues.'

'Yeah it appears we also have a lot of time to dangle ourselves down skyscrapers.'

'We're not dangling – certainly not – you want to see what dangling is? I'll show you...'

'No thanks,' Gwen casually flips her hand in the air. She is happy enough to sit on the parapet like a suicide-obsessed person and doesn't really want a vigorous rush of blood to the head. All of a sudden, she's dizzyingly aware of the height and grabs his arm again, clinging to his jacket so tightly that she might have even torn it at places. 'Drop it, Peter,' she says, 'tell me what're you going to do for a job.'

'I don't know – maybe I'll try something with my photographs.'

'Oh there were some great ones,' she gushes enthusiastically, sitting up straight and mysteriously forgetting all about the parapet as soon as he utters the word "photographs", 'you remember the one you took, Peter, with a tower at the forefront and the cityscape sunset at the back? I particularly love it. Feels very New York.' She gives a grinning dazed look at the distant flagpoles, as if painting the picture in her mind over the buildings or just guessing out how it might look that way.

'Really?' he chuckles.

'Yeah, I'm serious.'

'Maybe you can help me sort them out.'

'Why not,' she laughs, 'I'll get some time off physics then. At least photography doesn't involve magnetism.'

'At least photography doesn't involve martyrdom.'

Gwen's smile abruptly vanishes and her heart misses a beat. She looks away and smacks her lips, digging into the concrete with her nails rather concernedly. As the silence gets uncomfortable, Peter makes a ton of apologetic faces, scratches at the back of his head and runs out of words. After a minute, he thinks of something to say but then doesn't, and continues fidgeting beside her. He realizes the damage has been irrevocably done.

'I was joking,' he then adds lamely, reaching his hand out to tuck her wildly flying hair back.

'It isn't funny,' she says, 'and neither are your escapades which you _so_ enjoy.' She knows, though. She knows it is no use telling him off, or talking about his fresh new bruises, or how reckless he has been. It was only last week when somebody gave him a black eye and the side of his face was swollen like hell. How can he just label everything as a skateboarding accident? Skateboards don't punch, and they don't shoot bullets. Why doesn't he get that? No wonder his aunt thinks she has got a midnight gangster nephew. She doesn't want to dig out those things again. It has become a normal routine, a common point where their conversation ultimately reaches and stops at, and they look away, stealing glances. Why, only the day before yesterday at Chinatown they were talking about this thing, and out of inane frustration Gwen left him alone with the ice-creams and took a cab home. But she knows it is no use telling him _anything_. Right now, as he opens his mouth to speak, Gwen rolls her eyes again, because she knows he will come up with the same old thing.

'I _have_ to do this, Gwen, you know that very well,' he says, intense, and carefully emphasizing on each word he treads on, 'or who else will like to wear this itchy flashy suit every day?'

'You are so predictable, Peter.'

'That's why I told you,' he speaks as if Gwen never spoke, lost in his own thoughts, 'and not Aunt May. She would've had me locked up in some kind of dungeon forever. It's you who knows because you understand.'

'It's me who knows 'coz I'd invited you for dinner.'

Peter lets out a long exhale and murmurs under his breath, 'What the heck am I supposed to do with this girl.'

* * *

'You bought a car, Aunt May?' Peter coughs over his snacks as he repeats her casually-passed comment. He thinks there is something wrong with his ears, some peculiar kind of deafness that manipulates words before the impulse reaches the brain. And given that he was slightly busy recollecting the particularly fine windy morning he spent with Gwen at the top of the skyscraper, he is absolutely sure he heard wrong.

'Just rented it, Peter,' she murmurs, mopping the kitchen slab. She looks slightly embarrassed.

'Rented it for what?' he asks again, 'If you wanted a lift to office, you could've taken – '

'What, your skateboard?' she shoots back.

'Train,' clarifies Peter, 'I was going to say train.'

'Oh Peter, it didn't cost me as much money as you're thinking it did,' she says, this time turning at him and casting a disgusted glance at the stray bits of snacks lying all around him over the couch resembling a mound of fallen autumn leaves. In response, Peter straightens up and dusts them down as they scatter over the floor, while Aunt May continues, 'and I rented it because we're moving out.'

'We're moving out?' he is visibly distraught, 'When?'

'Today.'

'Today?'

'I've already packed things up,' she says, 'didn't you notice? Though it's a shame I've to do this on your birthday...'

Peter thinks he must be mad. Or partially blind. Either way or how is even possible that he never noticed those heavy trunks and huge cartons piled one over another like a heap of abnormally large bricks under the staircase and at the doorway? Right now Aunt May has been rolling up cutlery into old newspapers and all he is doing is chomping on snacks and thinking about cars. At once he jumps down the couch and walks in to help her lift the kitchen television, still flabbergasted about the fact how he didn't notice anything. 'Birthday blindness,' he calls it.

'Hey, wrestling ads,' he catches a free-flying piece of newspaper while wrapping the china plates and placing them into their boxes, 'I've always wanted to punch a wrestler on the face.'

'Featherweight category?' Aunt May giggles, putting the tape at the corners.

'Yeah, would suit me,' laughs Peter, 'especially when I've punch a liz – '

'A what?' asks Aunt May, furrowing her eyebrows as if she couldn't catch something.

Peter's laugh disappears and he freezes in his place, his mouth half-opened. He is just goofing up too much right now, from every aspect, struggling with one half of his mind too busy to do anything apart from thinking about Gwen and the other half not even working properly or noticing the whirlwind of changes around him, and spilling secrets. Hell, what does he say now?

'A – er – er – a,' he grins nervously, 'a – a link! You know, link – internet – online wrestling – '

He doesn't even want to think or decode how lame that sounded, and is perfectly happy of Aunt May getting rid of her hard-of-hearing gestures and starting with the tape again. They don't speak much for some time, putting things into their places, sealing cartons and wrapping items. It is only when they are finally done and Aunt May is swiping the floor when she begins talking again, a bit thoughtful and serious.

'Look, Peter,' she pauses to have his attention, then as he glances, she continues, 'I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing you and I know you've grown up enough to take care of yourself, but, Peter, it's time you take some responsibility.'

'Hmm...' he nods, giving some final touches of tape on a cardboard box.

'D'you know what I'm talking about?'

'Not really...'

'I'm talking about you, Peter.'

'You want me to marry? I just got past high school, Aunt May,' he looks at her, guffawing.

'I'm not asking you to marry, for God's sake, Peter,' she says putting down the wiper and folding her arms, 'I'm asking you to take some responsibility about yourself, about your safety. Do you have any idea that a murder happened right in the next lane when you came home that late? You aren't even bothered to tell me where you're off to! I was so worried...'

First Gwen, then Aunt May. He knows he might even be responsible for it and it's only for his own good, but all of a sudden everybody seems to be chewing out about his late night escapades today. He feels like burying his face into the packet of snacks. How bad holding back a secret can get? He's well aware that the night Aunt May is talking about was actually a rough one; he had been following the policemen who were about to catch the notorious Russian mafia gang. It was an overlong sting operation, and he came home, maybe, past 3 p.m. But come on, it's the pangs of being spider-man, not somebody with a fixed 8 a.m to 10 p.m office job. It is just something he cannot help.

'Uh – I'm so sorry about that night Aunt May, I just thought – '

'I've been hearing terrible, terrible things about the murder,' she inhales, when the sudden honking outside interrupts into their conversation, 'Wait, now that must be Phil.' Aunt May looks up and rushes to the door.

'Who's Phil?'

'Our new neighbour, 'Aunt May hurries with the packages, 'and he's also supposed to bring the car.'

Peter peeks through the glass door. Beside the middle-aged beefy red-haired man, dressed in a beach shirt and shorts and leaning over, his eyes catch the blue car. And what a car it is.

* * *

After a long time it feels like spring. Peter breathes in the crisp New York air, and the breeze whiffs through his hair. The world seems to be motioning ever so slowly. And that is, of course, thanks to the car. He looks down at the droopy music system which is about to fall onto his lap. And he is trembling, not out of any kind of excitement but because of the engine that is noisy enough to have him put on a weird grumpy face ever since he has climbed into the car. He can sense the springs popping out of the seat and pinching his butt. The horn feels like working whenever it has a mood to, and even vigorously pushing the accelerator for the thirtieth time cannot really speed it up. He can now realize what Aunt May said about its cost was an understatement; anybody asking even a single penny should be slapped straight on the face.

He could've carried all the goods at one go and swung them into place within ten minutes. After all, he's goddamn spider-man. But no, he requires stumbling and tumbling his way through the road. He feels Aunt May has played some sort of practical joke on him.

'I've got to go to the office, Peter. Just drive the goods to the new home, if you please. Phil will show you the way in the first round,' she said, pulling out her regular handbag from the mess of cardboard and newspapers and walking down the stairs.

'But its Sunday, Aunt May,' he tried to add some reason in her excuse not to drive the car herself, as he hurried after her.

'I know. I've taken an extra shift.'

'But I don't even have a license!'

She patted him on the shoulder and grinned, 'Take mine.'

'What?'

And there he is, making the third round. Sometimes, the scratched-to-death Ford's speed gives him serious doubts about how much more it can take before the wheels come off automatically. The car (piece of worthless metal, in his opinion) is also causing him some undue attention, to his annoyance, as he keeps his fingers crossed that the attention remains subdued and doesn't reach up to a police officer. But it seems only after she sees her nephew behind bars will Aunt May realize that neither he is almost a senior citizen, nor does he resemble her picture on the driving license.

Without warning, a girl on a motorbike materializes out of a by lane. Apparently she doesn't notice the car and pauses dead-on in front of it to check her ringing cell-phone. Peter pushes the brakes abruptly, doubtful about whether they really work as the car keeps hurtling forth, soon to collide with her. Finally it comes to halt, and he breathes a sigh of relief, while the girl glances up from the phone, pulls off her white helmet and smiles at the car as though she has seen it in some kind of exhibition last week. How embarrassing, thinks Peter.

'You okay?' he asks her, getting out of the car.

The pretty face holds a kind of apprehension for a while as if she were expecting a bashing from him for stopping short in front of his car, but then grins and says, 'I'm fine, it didn't touch me.'

Once assured, he gets in and tries to restart the car. And how he never understood pushing the brakes all so suddenly will break it down altogether. He checks the petrol tank. It's almost full. He grits his teeth and heaves a long sigh, putting his head down on his arms over the steering wheel. He thinks he now desperately needs to pull out his mask. This is more than enough.

'What happened?' asks the girl, after she gets off her motorbike and gazes in through the car window.

'Huh?' he looks up, startled, 'Oh no, nothing, it's just – '

'Broken down, I guess,' she says, and runs her eyes around the interiors, 'cool car.'

Peter gets visibly infuriated, but keeps his cool and grins at her, 'This piece of trash isn't mine.'

'This isn't a piece of trash.'

'Oh yes it is. And it's out of my capabilities to get it started.'

'Let me try once,' she suggests coolly.

'I don't even know you,' reasons Peter.

'Doesn't matter.'

'Okay, what if I let you in and you run away with it?'

'You'll still have my motorbike,' she replies, 'fair bargain.'

'Fine,' he scoffs, and jumps out of the driver's seat.

He looks up and down at the enormous blue pile of immovable broken down rubbish and folding his arms, leans against the lamp post beside, his lips turned up into a twisted mock-grin. For the next half an hour, the girl's bubbling enthusiasm slowly leaks out like air out of a punctured balloon, as she occasionally glances up at him making peculiar faces which range from saying, "I accept your challenge" to "Can't you even help?" and "You're a frigging jerk", however after a few dozen trials with the gear and closing the front lid after checking in for the twentieth time, she turns at him and finally confesses, 'No, it isn't working.'

'Told ya,' he nods.

'What're you going to do now?' she asks in a genuinely curious voice, stroking back the red flaming hair that comes flying into her eyes.

'I don't know – uh – maybe I'll take a cab – '

'Wait, I can give you a ride,' the girl positively beams with him wondering why, and whether she's some sort of a social worker, 'you have any problem with that?'

'Oh no, how can I,' he flings his arms into the air, bordering on the sarcasm that the girl never really gets, smiles to himself and stares at her trying to figure out the reason behind this unexplainable generosity. The girl puts on her helmet and kicks-start the bike, 'Okay, then climb up.'

'Well, don't you think the car needs to move into a repair centre first?'

'Oh yeah,' she gets off again and grins apologetically, 'forgot about it.'

'Forgettable thing, as it is.'

'Enough thrashing now.'

'Really,' he chuckles, pulling out the luggage, 'I didn't even get started yet. This car's undoubtedly the most wasteful thing I've ever seen. And it's tortured me for a lifetime in this one hour.'

'Ha ha,' she says unenthusiastically. At times, Peter notices that she touches or handles it so very carefully – like the way one will do to their new Ferrari – as if she has some sort of spiritual connection with the battered-down car that he cannot understand, and won't stop screaming with fury if someone goes as close to making a small scratch (given that there isn't even a place to make one, honestly).

'A trunk, two boxes, and another trunk,' says the girl, as she pauses in between to make each word count, and raises her eyebrows so high that they almost disappear into her red locks. She parks the motorbike near the wall and stops short just in front of him, 'Are you sure you can carry all this at once?' She looks awestruck and traces her eyes from his hair down to his feet, and then at the things in his hands and the relative ease in which he is carrying them. Peter knows that even the thick jacket can't make him look buff. But he smirks; thinking his skinny build and his strength must be colliding hard inside her head and giving her some dizziness.

'With my pinkie,' he waves off casually. Now he thinks he is having fun.

'Show off,' she dismisses him, but somehow cannot hide the surprise in her voice as they begin to push the car. Right now, she must also be feeling that she doesn't really need to give any effort and the car is seemingly rolling all by itself. Peter thinks there are chances that the girl will soon start to violently scratch her head in confusion or run away shrieking at the top of her lungs, "He's a freak!" But she steers clear of the 'whys' and 'whats' of the happenings and continues 'pushing' the car. After a while, as they reach the turn of the lane, Peter casually questions, 'By the way, we didn't really collide so you don't quite have an obligation to fix this car or help me – I mean – I mean – I really appreciate your help but can't quite guess out why you're doing it – '

'_Because_,' she comes to an abrupt pause and narrows her eyes at him, her sweet disposition almost gone and as he backtracks a couple of steps, caught off guard by the sudden change, she scoffs, 'you are my new neighbour, and that car is my dad's _baby_.'

Okay. He can now feel the colour rising up his face.

* * *

'She told you I was mean and arrogant?'

After the car went where it should have long ago, the work happened really fast. And even faster, because the girl didn't waste any time talking to Peter, and remained in a disgruntled and sulking state of mind, often pulling down the bags so forcefully that the straps almost came off. Peter thought she probably took his comments about the car to heart. But she also helped him big time, so he had made up his mind to thank her, but them she stalked off somewhere and he ended up spending the rest of the time sitting on one of the trunks which filled up the whole of the front porch, waiting for Aunt May. But seriously, thinks Peter, who would've thought she had been filling her ears all this time?

'She didn't tell me anything,' says Aunt May.

'Honestly, Aunt May I never said anything more than the obvious. The car needed to go to the repair centre; in fact it looked beyond repair to me. It should've right away headed to a – a – I don't know – '

'Waste basket, I guess?'

Peter is so startled by the sudden voice that he almost jumps in response, trips his feet and crashes with a dull thud on the floor. The girl came up all so suddenly behind his back. She renders a cold glance at his admittedly staggered face, puts down a cluster of plates and starts to walk her way to the next room.

'Where did you come from?' Peter asks with such bewilderment that he comes off as slightly rude.

'Kitchen,' she snaps.

'You've been overhearing us.'

'I've got better things to do.'

'What is she doing here?' Peter asks Aunt May, looking so traumatised that Aunt May can't help but laugh under her breath. He raises his eyebrows, unable to make out what is going on, and waits for her answer, 'Don't tell me she's going to stay...'

'Mary Jane has just come to help me with the dinner,' she says, dusting the couch 'now, now, Peter, you better behave properly.' He almost opens his mouth to protest when he hears a certain jingle in one of the boxes that tumbled with him when he fell, and is sure at once that he has broken something. As Aunt May approaches them, he swiftly gets to his feet and thinks of sneaking out of the crammed living hall before she finds out how much damage he has done to her beloved kitchen items.

Following the sound of the hammering, he strolls into the room the girl has just walked into. The work is almost done there, though the bed is awfully filled with dust and the way the girl is standing on it and thumping the nail into the wall makes it wobble very dangerously.

'Give it to me,' says Peter. He thinks it is safe to take it away before the whole bed collapses with her. The girl, namely Mary Jane, doesn't even glance down.

'Look I – I,' Peter stutters, scratching the back of his head and thinking what to come up with, 'I apologize.' This time she gives a narrow-eyed titled stare at his face, while he adds, 'I'm sorry – you know – what I said – I'm really sorry I insulted your car –it must've shed a lot of tears after I was gone – ' he almost bursts out laughing and has to stuff his knuckles into his face to control his facial muscles, 'I'm sorry. I really am.' He knows he has now annoyed her to such an extent that right now she won't hesitate even a teensy bit if she has to hammer the nail into his head instead.

'What's that you're wearing?' he asks suddenly.

'What d'you mean?' she glares at Peter, visibly offended.

'Oh no, I mean, who's that on your T-shirt? Spidey?'

'It's got nothing to do with you,' she snaps back gruffly, while her face reddens up, reaching almost the same colour as her hair.

'Yeah, nothing,' Peter gives an odd smirk, sitting at the other side of the bed, 'fan girl.'

He looks through the window. The scene outside is more or less the same as what it has been back at their old house – some neighbouring blocks of houses, patches of yellow green grass, and a broad lane in front. Peter switches on the lights. The sky appears quite dark from inside and he assumes it must be past 6 p.m. He turns warningly at the sudden sound that follows, but thinks that must be the new doorbell.

'Just check the door, will you, Peter...' comes a distant Aunt May's call from upstairs. Peter stumbles his way through the hotchpotch of cardboard, newspapers, china and glass scattered all over the living room and hopes that he didn't crush anything under his feet as reaches the door and pulls it ajar.

Peter furrows his eyebrows into a frown, unsure whether he has ever seen the person before. It is a young man of about his age, wearing an expensive overcoat with a heavy looking bag slung around his shoulder. For a moment they stand gaping at each other, when the man breaks into a warm smile. The smile brings a glint to his deep-set, sunken eyes under the darkish blond hair falling over his forehead and he all of a sudden starts to look familiar.

'You forgot me, Peter?' he talks in a teasing, suspenseful tone, as though asking Peter the answer to his riddle.

Peter screws his eyebrows further. He remembers that eerie glint in the guy's eyes, although it seems like a distant faded memory he cannot fully recollect.

'Ha – Harry?'

'It's been such a long time, Peter. By the way, happy birthday. Won't you ask me to come in?'

* * *

**So I wrote this because I was tired of the angsty sad things regarding Peter and Gwen and thought they must move on. And as you can see, there's some heavy inspiration from the TASM 2 set pics, which I hope is not a crime. Since I've got no idea how this came about, I'll only continue if you ask me to. So review and tell me whether the story should move one step further or should remain a one-shot. Thanks for reading.**


	2. Chapter 2

Peter thinks he hasn't smiled like this since ages.

Most positively because he had no idea that all this time Aunt May has been brewing up a party for his birthday. As Harry tells him, it was a sort of accident that Aunt May picked up the phone when he called to know where Peter is currently staying and to tell he had just shifted back to New York with his father, and in the meantime she asked him to come about for a small party that had been a top secret until now among everyone of them but Peter. And if that isn't enough of the shock, moments after Harry arrives, Peter opens the door to see Gwen, holding a small glittery gift in her hands and dressed up in a pretty trench coat, smiling. Soon after she enters, she makes sure no one is looking, pulls him over to a certain corner and gives a quick mischievous kiss on his lips, whispering, 'You aren't the only one who can surprise, birthday boy.'

Well, she's Gwen Stacy, right? She always does, thinks Peter, as he pushes the luggage towards the walls to make some space in between. Harry engages in a chat with Mary Jane, much better with words than Peter has ever been in his life, and Peter finally discovers that the girl _does_ know how to smile. Even though the condition of the rooms make it look less like a party and more like an after-party scenario, it's Harry's witticisms that keeps the mood in high spirits.

'I was so small when I lived here,' he says, stroking a reminiscent finger on his forehead, 'but then I grew up, and the city grew up too.'

'How's your father, Harry?' asks Peter.

'He lies on the couch all day long. He's like, half paralysed. Like his company.'

'Excuse me, I work there,' says Gwen, slightly disgruntled.

'Oops, sorry,' he gives an awkward smile, 'but that's what I heard about it.'

'You're soon to take over, then, given Mr. Osborn's ill health?' Gwen asks again, rather curiously.

'Me? No, Dad won't hand over his thing to someone _this_ useless,' he grins, then pauses for a thought and continues, 'by the way, Peter, I never heard about your parents. I'm so sorry about it. And also, I had to give the hell of an effort to actually search you out. You must've been through a lot of changes.'

'Changes, yeah,' nods Peter. Harry has no idea how true his statement is, he thinks, 'I have always been going through them.'

'Dinner time, children!'

Pretty soon, though, after dinner, Aunt May ascertains she's the odd one out and decides to move upstairs to bed. 'I'm too old for anymore,' she says, and slams the door of her room shut. Anyhow, that leaves four of them in a dimly-lit room downstairs and somewhat room enough for Aunt May's "no drinking" rules to be broken. Almost an hour past midnight, when each of them is sure enough that Aunt May has fallen asleep by now, Peter and Harry shut the door tight, and whack it with a bat to check how far the sound is carried and whether or not it makes Aunt May run down the stairs in alarm. And once they are assured that it doesn't really pass through the block of wood, let alone reach Aunt May's ears, the four of them wreak havoc.

'You're high, Harry,' says Harry to himself, groggy-eyed and drooling.

'Oh yes, you are,' remarks Mary Jane, laughing.

Harry gives a swooning smile and turns at her, fluttering his eyelashes, 'So, Miss,' he says, crouching before her and then hilariously bending his knees like the way a woman greets, and holding onto his imaginary skirt, 'You perhaps don't realize that you're absolutely gorgeous and I've been hitting on you all this time, but still, what can I do for you?'

'Let's see,' Mary Jane play-acts, flailing her arms with grace, and orders like a queen, 'sing me Coldplay.'

'I can imagine Aunt May running down the stairs and watching this with wide-eyed horror,' Gwen murmurs into Peter's ear. She yawns and rests her head on his shoulder.

'Yeah, and then kill me,' he guffaws, 'but don't worry, she isn't going to spare any of you either. Especially Harry, who's sneaked those cans of vodka in that innocent-looking bag from right under her nose.'

Gwen giggles and snuggles closer to him. Adjusting her head on his shoulder, she closes her eyes and pretends to fall asleep, a big wide smile still etched across her face. Right now, Harry and Mary Jane are doing a very unstable and odd-looking waltz number, unknowingly kicking the empty cans all over the place as the cans roll and bounce off to different corners of the room. Peter thinks he has to make a plan to sweep all the mess and arrange a room freshener before dawn unless he wants to bear the brunt in the morning, but he's much too distracted to think thanks to Harry's shouting – er - singing at the top of his lungs.

'_Guides will light you home, and ignite your bones. And I will fly... to kiss you!_'

'Wait, it's a mourning song, isn't it?' interrupts Peter.

'How does it matter, he's anyway changed the lyrics,' says Gwen.

'I thought you're sleeping.'

'I still am,' she replies without opening her eyes, 'So Harry is your childhood friend?'

Peter traces his mind's eye into past memories. He was probably six when he last saw Harry and his father, maybe a year before Peter's house was broken into and his parents left him with Uncle Ben and Aunt May. But still he remembers his face very well. Harry's quite grown up now and most of his features have changed; his eyes have sunken so deep that it gives a morose vibe to his face, but the eerie glint in them remains. What Peter means with the 'eerie glint' is that it's a kind of glint that lends him a certain wickedness, as if when he smiles, he somewhat indicates he's up to no good.

But Harry's always known to be a good guy. However, unlike now, what Peter has seen of him in the past has been more of a moody and aloof Harry; he's always been a pathetic figure, losing his mother at an age when they barely knew what loss means, and having a father with a life where he has time for nobody. Actually Peter remembers a lot of things. The glassy polished floor of the ancestral Osborn mansion that felt so different from the one at his parents' apartment at that time. The maniacal design on the polyester rug at Harry's home that was pretty scary. And Harry loved apple pies. And he bonded so well with Peter's mother. And he copied Peter's homework. Almost every day. Yes, Peter _does_ remember a lot of things.

'Yeah, our fathers worked together,' says Peter, breaking out of his thoughts, 'Oi Harry! You're irking the neighbours big time with your singing!'

'And they'll soon drive us out of here,' says Gwen.

'Or worse, Aunt May will wake up.'

'Why's it always the neighbours butting in to spoil the fun?' asks Harry, 'Let's get out of here. Out on the streets.'

'Aunt May'll know even if we tiptoe from right under her room,' reasons Peter, 'it's way dangerous.' Gwen raises her eyebrows at him in disbelief, 'Did you just say _dangerous_?'

'God created windows, Peter.'

'First clean the mess you've made, Harry.'

* * *

'Isn't it pretty,' says Harry, 'the city that never sleeps?'

He assumes he is in his senses now. He walks through the pavement with Peter, Gwen and Mary Jane (she just asked him to call her "MJ"), joking and laughing all the way. The busy traffic and the bright neon lights over the buildings at Times Square and the after effect of alcohol has sucked out every bit of sleep that existed in him as he flings his arms and marches along the path like a cavalry soldier, protruding his head from behind in between Gwen and MJ who have been standing side by side, posing for a picture.

'And you were blaming the neighbours for butting in,' says Peter after clicking the shot that included an extra head.

They pass a few more shops on their side, with Peter clicking numerous photographs of whatever he can find in front of him and at his sides, and with Harry's jokes gradually progressing towards the 'dirty' level as the girls make gagging and disgusted gestures and laugh along at each of them.

'That's enough of it, stop now, Harry!' laughs Gwen, clutching her belly, and tries to appear a little bit exasperated.

Harry opens his mouth for another one, but abruptly pauses and screws his eyebrows together, his wide grin giving way to a frown, 'What the hell is happening ahead?'

Apart from the regular hustle on city roads, there seems some unusual tension down this one as it turns far towards right. Harry shades his eyes from the neon lights trying to look forth and figure out what is happening, but sees nothing in particular. However as soon as they catch the police sirens a number of times, a huge crowd of people break out from the turn. Most of them are screaming and panicking, as though they are running to save their necks. The broad road is all of a sudden jammed with a haphazard rush of terrified pedestrians, hurtling through the space between the taxis and vehicles stacked together and stuck in the ruckus. A minute later, a series of gunshots reverberate into the air, triggering a furore of screams and panic.

'Something's wrong, let's move out of here,' says MJ warningly, as the crowd pushes past them tearing its way through.

'Where's Peter?'

Harry feels an abrupt fear rush into his blood. Peter is nowhere at sight, as if he just disappeared into thin air. He looks around more carefully, tries to sort him out from the people forcing their ways into the jam-packed stores and shops lined along the pavement. The crowd is roaring past them so forcefully that it is almost impossible to stand at a place or move against the current. He squeezes his way through and runs a few metres ahead. 'Peter!' he calls out loudly. No one in particular turns at him. He calls again. Nothing. His voice seems to muffle up in the noise. Harry racks his brains. Peter must've run on instinct as soon as he heard the sound of the gunshot, maybe into one of the confectionaries beside. Or maybe he just strayed with the current. But he still ought to be somewhere around and not too far, oughtn't he? And Harry is sure he has looked well enough.

Slowly it dawns upon him that Peter is not here.

Harry tries to remember whether Peter was with them before the chaos occurred. It comes up all cloudy – the jokes, the girls laughing, Peter wandering off to here and there flashing the old camera hung about his neck... he thinks about the series of gunshots he just heard. What if Peter unknowingly sauntered into the scene with his camera and fell in the line of fire? Harry doesn't even know what has actually happened there. But his mind is just too full of suspicions. What if a deranged criminal opened fire at innocent civilians and Peter is one of them? Harry feels his heart missing a beat.

'Peter can look after himself, let's move out first,' Gwen suggests urgently, as standing and waiting on the pavement becomes more and more difficult. A man lunges her out of the way and she loses her balance, almost falling off her feet.

Harry looks at her as if she just asked him both his kidneys. He ignores her. A shiver runs down his neck. Horrendous pictures move past his mind before he can get a control over himself. He doesn't want to imagine it – Peter lying dead on the streets amidst a pile of other bodies – it is just too horrendous. 'No,' he says in a low yet stern voice, watching the ambulances storming past them, 'I'm going to search him out.' He doesn't want to find Peter in one of those ambulances. Not tonight. He gasps and jumps in alarm as more sounds of gunshot follow. Without further ado, he breaks into a run towards the area the tension has arisen.

'Harry, wait!' shouts MJ, as both the girls hurtle after him.

After a short while, Harry comes to a pause, panting for breath. The road resembles a maze now, full of haphazardly running people who bump into him, the emergency vans, the policemen, the loudspeakers announcing something that doesn't quite reach his ears and the slow drizzle that pricks into his face and muddles his vision. But still no sight of the greenish jacket Peter wore, or his tousled head of hair, or even the old camera that could've been lying about on the streets. Harry knows the policemen won't allow going anywhere near the spot the shootout has happened. There's already a huge and thick array of them lined up and circling the area. He thinks he can see some bodies lying on the road, from what is visible through the gaps. 'They are the _criminals_,' he says, hell-bent on not letting his imaginations go out of control, 'and none else.' He never wanted to reach any conclusions right now but his mind is halting over and over again at the same point: if he isn't here, he must be there; and if he's there, he might just never come back.

Harry curses himself. It was his idea after all, to get out of the house. He was the one who dragged Peter here. Peter said it might be dangerous. He used the word _dangerous_. But Harry never listened. It has all been his fault. He should've kept a check whether the four of them are strolling together. He should've seen that no one has gone astray. He is the one to blame for all that's now happened. He remembers how he was bubbling with excitement when he rang the doorbell, waiting to catch Peter by surprise. It was, after all, his birthday. But what now?

Harry feels an insane frustration tearing him up from inside. He frantically rubs his face with his palms. He is almost shuddering. How on earth is he going to face Peter's aunt? What is he going to say? Forget Peter's aunt, how is he going to ever face _himself_? What was that he just did? That he came up to meet his best friend after ages and got him killed the very night?

He is all of a sudden scared. What if Aunt May somehow wakes up and phones him now? What will he tell her? What are they exactly doing, roaming in the city at the dead of night? Is he going to say that he's more or less sure that Peter has been killed and is only waiting to see his body for an absolute conformation? He feels the cell phone burning a hole in his pocket. What if it _does_ start ringing?

The phone. 'Why didn't I think of this before,' he murmurs to himself as his hands fumble into his pocket. He pulls it out to dial Peter's number. He doesn't have it. Gwen does. She some why hesitates. 'It's no use, Harry, you don't understand –' she starts off but before she can complete Harry snatches her phone away. He scrolls through the contacts and dials his number. 'C'mon, Peter, pick it up. For god's sake, pick it up...' he mutters continuously. But the number keeps on ringing. There's no response. He tries again. No response.

'_Shit_,' Harry somehow abstains himself from smashing the phone to the ground and hands it back to her. 'What now?' MJ purses her lips, her face warped in apprehension as the raindrops slither down the strands of her flaming red hair. For some reason Harry feels that Gwen has suddenly started to behave pretty out of the way; she looks at them and makes strange kinds of faces, as though she wants to tell them something but some why cannot. She appears way more composed than both of them, like this is something which has happened often. Harry tries to focus on finding Peter instead of decoding Gwen's thoughts.

He thinks he needs to figure out a way to reach the spot, that too right from under the policemen's noses. In spite of more forces arriving, the disorder seems to progress from bad to worse – more screams, more sirens, more ambulances, more gunshots, more panic. Harry darts into the nearest alley on an impulse. There must be a shortcut somewhere, he thinks.

The alley is dark and somewhat alienated from the chaos on the city roads. It has a narrow passageway up at the front, quiet and unkempt, bothered on both sides with desolated buildings and corroded structures. An abandoned broken-down car lies near the left wall, and a mangled dump of metal barrels near the right. An alley cat mews somewhere. It is a place which usually belongs to thieves at this time – thieves playing cards, drinking, and mugging people.

Harry senses his throat drying up. A drop of sweat trickles down his forehead and mixes with the rainwater. He is alarmingly aware how drenched he is. The rain is icy cold. He gulps the unease that goes down and forms a knot in his stomach. Something tells him he has chosen the wrong path.

The rain grows heavier. Soon, the alley starts to waterlog. Water fills into the seats of the desolated car and into the garbage barrels. The drops patter hard and loud against the metal. Far away, he sees a shadowy silhouette hurrying its way through the narrow passage. The silhouette grows into a bulky middle-aged man in a sleeveless jacket and khakis, splashing over puddles of water. The man comes to an abrupt halt as soon as his gaze falls on the three of them, and a surrendered fear spreads across his face.

'Move over,' he utters a low warning, while backtracking a step. A flash of lightning reveals the deep scar across his face, from his eyebrow to his chin, and a startled look that came in after the momentary fear. Harry notices a ring-shaped tattoo on his muscular arm. And a gun in his hand.

'No.'

He gives a reply a sane person would think twice before giving. He freezes in his position, his jaws stiffening. The man waits for a couple of seconds, his grip tightening around the trigger, but Harry doesn't even think of moving and somewhat spreads his arms to obstruct the whole passage. There is no sudden blockage in his thinking for him doing that. He does that almost on purpose. Because – because, he isn't quite sure. This man has a gun. He looks scared, and he came running about the passageway. This man must be one of _those_ criminals. This man might've murdered innocent people. This man might've murdered Peter. He _just_ can't let him escape. In a knee-jerk reaction, he pulls on to the man's jacket trying to hold him back as the man shoves him aside.

'HARRY, NO!' Gwen's incoherent screams and MJ's wide-eyed stunned silence renders no effect over the violent one-to-one struggle down the alleyway. Harry lands a blow at the man's face but the next moment he steps into a puddle and slips his leg, collapsing against the wet glossy wall. The sky growls, and even as Harry looks up, he finds the mouth of the gun right over his forehead and the man's hand ready over the trigger.

It happens so fast, and at the same time, ever so slowly. Gwen gasps, MJ freezes, the man unlocks the gun and adjusts it over Harry's forehead. Harry feels the sudden spark of heat inside his shirt, or maybe it's what they call it – fear – wrenching his insides as he thinks about the final moment. The pain, the blood, the gore – as far as his senses will be able to tolerate. He looks into the man's eye, almost curiously as if asking him, 'Are you really going to shoot me, like that, for nothing?' and the certain icy torpor in the man's eye gives him the exact answer a part of his body and mind dreaded the most, 'No doubt I will.'

Harry shuts his eyes. His heart is throbbing like a funeral drum, so hard that it might even break a rib or two. Maybe this is what that happened with Peter. Maybe he too looked into the eye of his murderer before he was shot in the head. Or maybe, from what Harry has always known about him, he just darted in front of the bullet to save someone whom he might have never even known. But it doesn't matter right now. It's not Peter at the gunpoint, it's him. And he knows he can't escape. The gunman is giving him time to count his seconds, and to recount how the bright night all of a sudden turned all red and blood…

And the gun roars.

MJ's scream rattles through the alleyway. The earth-shattering sound of the gun makes him jump and his senses blind out for a second – but then surprisingly – they begin to return. His head seems a bit too normal after supposedly being hit by the bullet. He thinks he hasn't quite felt the impact – he can't sense the bullet piercing into his skull, or the blood spurting out of his forehead. He hasn't being knocked out. And most shockingly, he isn't dead.

Harry blinks open his eyes.

The man is nowhere. Upon hearing a muted movement, Harry looks up to find the man cocooned all over in whitish silken threads and suspended from one of the window sills of the building beside. It is somewhat like how it happens in the movies –when people fall prey to large fantastical insects. The man wriggles in the same way – like an earthworm caught on a fishing hook – lets out some stifled screams in vain, but in the end he is tongue-tied, literally and figuratively. Harry gapes at the struggling man, wondering how the situation that almost scared the wits out of him turned into something oddly comical. The still-smoking gun lies on the path, glazing in the rain.

The man must've misfired the shot before something made the gun fly out of his reach and sent him dangling into the air. But what?

Harry knows the answer. He can see it right before him. Far into the shadows as the alley makes a turn, he can see a figure hanging upside-down like a glossy red and blue spider. He knows who that is. He has heard of that guy so often. He has heard that this guy's perhaps the only reason New York is safer than any other city. He's –

'Spider man!' shouts MJ, elated.

But the figure disappears into the shadowy darkness even before MJ utters his name, leaving the three of them white-faced and shell-shocked on the path, and the gunman bound and struggling midair.

'Can we get out of here,' Gwen says, seething in anger, 'now?'

* * *

It's all gone now – the absurd haste to search Peter out, the hysteria, the fear, and the momentary lapse of reason which followed. Harry is, instead, sitting stunned on an empty bench, his mind reeling back, forth and back again at what had and what could've had happened then. His ears are still ringing with the sound of the gunshot and the incident is playing itself in his mind over and over again. Right from the cold touch of the metal which rested right between his eyes to the slight _thwip_ that occurred just before he thought he will never open them again.

The tension has almost subsided. An eerie calm has spread almost all over the place, barring the occasional sirens of the ambulances and the vague-sounding loudspeakers. He has no idea how many have been dead. Or injured. Or arrested. He just knows Peter has _still_ not returned. MJ, sitting beside him, looks equally stunned and lost, unable to cope with this sudden overload of emotions. Gwen is marching to and fro down the pavement, often looking around for anyone in sight, helplessly trying Peter on the phone and murmuring something Harry can't hear from the distance. He looks closely. He thinks he can see tears in her eyes.

They've been interrogated almost five times by police officers about whether or not any of them have been hurt, almost like the routine that follows after a road accident. And every time a swarm of questions have rushed to his mind, but the policemen seemed clueless. He then asked them about whether they have anywhere encountered a boy in his late teens in a greenish jacket and messy brown hair and an old film camera, even among the dead bodies – and hell, that was the _easiest_ question – but they didn't have a clue of that either.

MJ, who has all this time sat so rigid and silent, suddenly turns at him. Her own face is as pale as the crisp white shirt she is wearing as she stares at his. Her eyes are wide and apprehensive. She lets them do the talking.

_Do you think Peter will return? _

He muses for a while, and then looks away towards the oncoming stream of ambulances. Then turns again, gives her a ghost of a smile, and nods. He doesn't understand why he does it. He might have shaken his head, maybe even cried, had she asked this before the incident with the gunman. Right now, all the panic is looking at giving way towards a certain hope. A certain hope that even though four hours have passed without a sight of him, he must be alive. Because spider man won't let anyone die.

'Look, there!' she gasps, all of a sudden getting up to her feet and pointing forth. She sounds as elated as she had been when she saw spider man.

And it's Peter, jogging tiredly towards them as the old camera around his neck jiggles along with his motion. He looks quite alive and unhurt – well, except for the blood trickling down from the gash above his left eyebrow. He stops short and flashes a goofy grin, apologetically scratching the back of his head. His gestures launch an immediate flood of anger and a deep breath of relief in Harry in almost the same time.

Gwen comes to the scene as well, her tears quite in control as she gives Peter a sort of mysterious glare that only Peter seems to understand. And before the rest of them fire him with the same questions, he begins his own rambling rush of apologies.

'I'm really sorry, guys, I – I got stuck at that side of the road,' he flails his arms with each of his words, 'I know- I know, I shouldn't have done that – shouldn't have done that – '

'You're bleeding,' says MJ, her index finger pointed at his forehead.

'Oh – oh yeah,' he traces his hand over the eyebrow. It appears like he had never known about his bleeding forehead all this time. He gazes for a while at the blood on his fingers, but then ignores it totally as if it's something that happens quite often.

'We've been freaked out so badly!' the words come out so loudly out of Harry's mouth that a couple of policemen strolling at their side turn back in alarm. Peter reaches out a hand and pats him comfortingly on the back, and with an embarrassed, thief-like look on his face, he says, 'I know, I know, Harry, and I apologise.'

'Now that's enough trouble for a lifetime, Peter. Let's go back before Aunt May wakes up.'

* * *

**I really don't know where this chapter came from, however thanks for all the reviews, faves and follows.**

**All reviews, good, bad or horrible, are welcome.**

**Maybe except the trolls.**


	3. Chapter 3

It has been almost a week and Gwen's dreams are as vicious as they had been the night after that night. Today, the uncomfortable swooping sensation in her stomach is causing her some dizziness. She walks across the room and gazes out of the window for a breath of fresh air. She retches as if there is a tight rim around her throat. It is somewhat cloudy today. Gwen looks down. The roads are peaceful, apart from the usual summer hustle. But no hint of red and blue. She wonders why there should be. At this time of the day.

Gwen thinks she might have felt a little better had there not been her internship and if she could've had accompanied her brothers all the way to Uncle Sam's little cottage at the countryside. Although she won't dare to be too sure, for that would've meant staying away from Peter for at least a week or two. 'How does it even matter…' she tells her off dispassionately. She had seen less and lesser of Peter in the past few days. Either he is running about the streets of the city looking for a job, or swinging about flagpoles in spandex and landing on construction cranes. If only for once, she sighs, he lands on her fire escape instead.

That day she saw him walking down the stairs of an office building on the other side. He must've been there for a job appointment, for he carried a bunch of papers stacked together and had somewhat tried to comb up the brown mess on his head. She called and waved at him. He rendered the goofy boyish grin so typical of him, going with the usual happy 'Hi!', and almost began his way across the road, when a couple of police cars stormed past him, and without further thought he darted into a random alley instead. And she was left on the pavement, head hung down, disappointed, and sighing.

And all these incidents ever lead to one redundant question: where do these stupid_, stupid_ policemen always come from?

But that's her life. He's the science nerd and the hero, and she's that girl in the debate team, the friend, the lover, the confidante, the caretaker, the occasional damsel in distress, the fatherless daughter, the adolescent fool who doesn't want to understand meanings of big words like "responsibility", and … phew, the list is endless.

Now, all she knows is that she has to stay alone at home for at least a fortnight, wander through empty rooms, toss about science books, try and get some hang of an obscure sub-branch of thermodynamics, and order pizzas for dinner. She ponders for a few more moments. The thought itself is _so_ depressing. And probably that has what led those wickedly weird dreams to get a tighter hold on her.

She doesn't want to describe them. They are equally awful every time. They always involve nights. And Times Square. And Peter. And horrible things happening to him that she never sees and only hears about. From news reporters. From policemen. From MJ. From Harry.

It is nothing unusual that she worries about him. But that night, something unusual occurred. Maybe it was his panicky, hysterical friend. Or maybe because he was out for four long hours. Whatever the reason is, it has got her scared.

And that look Harry had given her. It is still so fresh before her eyes. Gwen is sure Harry must've given birth to some incredible hate towards her. He must've thought of her as some mean, self-centred _bitch_ whom Peter should get rid of as quickly as possible.

However, Harry was being absolutely crazy that night. Shoving some sense into the guy's head shouldn't hurt him too much. After all, what was he trying to do, holding back a man with a gun?

Peter has got friends like him. Reckless. Impulsive. _Noble_. In the past week once Peter had said he has known Harry since so long that he can trust him with his life. Why not trust him with his secret then? That would've wiped out the confusion by a long shot. And if not, then Gwen can picture a hypothetical dinner in her mind where she and Harry are conversing either through Peter, or by clunking their forks against their plates.

She draws the window curtains and walks over towards the refrigerator. It's almost empty. She raided it last night. She thinks she might make a visit to the grocery store after her shift at OsCorp.

Suddenly, the phone rings.

'Hello?'

'Hey, Gwen, it's Laura.'

Laura is her colleague at OsCorp. Smart but a little insincere, she has been Gwen's partner for three projects in a row. Right now, she sounds a little confused as her pitched voice trails along the urgent sentences ad leaves them half-formed.

'Gwen, you need to come fast – it's the workload – suddenly increased – '

'Wait, wait, wait, Laura, calm down, 'she says, 'what happened?'

'It's a new department – emergency department – The Last Resort – '

Now Laura's sentences are not only half-formed, but also too cryptic to understand. Gwen holds the phone closer to her ear wondering whether it's Laura being weird or her ears or the network receiving incomplete signals.

'I'll tell you as you come by,' says Laura, 'nothing serious, though.'

'Okay,' nods Gwen, 'I'm coming. On my way.'

* * *

OsCorp is a huge, mysterious structure of brick and mortar. Underneath the glossy floors and glass panes, escalators, laboratories, machines, gadgets – it holds too many scars when stripped bare. Too much blood in its ledge. Too much menace. The introduction board just beside the elevator looks dimmer than before. And so is the reputation. Well, Harry _did_ speak the harsh truth that night - the company's half-paralyzed. Sinking. Doomed.

'Gwen!'

She turned her head. It's a girl with noticeable short-cropped pixie hair wearing an overlong lab coat with a blue badge dangling down the left pocket, and holding a huge pile of files and documents to her chest with her elongated bony arms, the one who had phoned her – Laura. Gwen hurries forth and shares the bunch of files as they begin to slip down her grasp.

'What are these?' Gwen asks curiously, trying to flip over one or two, but her arms are right now too full of them.

'Records.'

'What records?'

'Criminal records, they told me.'

'And since when had our department required criminal records?'

'It's not for cross-species genetics. It's for The Last Resort.'

'Whatever it is, why're you calling it _that_?' Gwen grimaces as she slams the files on the table, 'Makes it sound like a movie…'

'It's code-named that way.'

'By the way, Laura,' asks Gwen, looking into one of the files, 'Why on earth are we working for a department we don't even belong to, that too doing these odd jobs? We're here for science, not clerkship…'

'Yeah, I know, but,' Laura turns at her but then looks away, and giggles nervously, and as her cheeks redden up in, maybe, embarrassment, she mumbles, 'I enrolled us.'

'Without asking me.'

'Oh, c'mon Gwen, I thought I'd need some company, and anyway they're going to pay us handsome bucks for this incredibly dull-minded job.'

Gwen stares at the pile of files and gives out a deep breath of discontent. The pile is _so_ tall. By the time she finishes entering these records, she will grow a hunchback and her eyes will fall off the sockets. It is such a depressing day. No sight of Peter from the morning, no hearing of the that guy in spandex either, empty refrigerator, alone in the apartment, and right now staring at the blank white screen of the monitor. Life is _simply_ pathetic.

Midway through the work, she looks around and bulges her eyes trying to give them some respite from the glaring screen. The whole thing is _furiously _boring. She stretches her arms together and thinks of something else to do. Even making a mental plan of what and what not to buy at the grocery store sounds a better option.

Quite curiously, she wonders whether the gunman who almost killed Harry that night could be in those files. The man did have some clearly noticeable features, even in that pitch dark alley. There was a certain long scar on one side of his face. And short-cropped hair studded with droplets of rain. His eyes were blue, or blue-grey, or grey – the colour wasn't quite visible from the distance. She thinks he must've at least been a street mugger, if not a crime lord.

Gwen frantically tosses the documents about, tracing her fingers over the front pages, near to the picture of the criminal. There's a short column at the bottom. The column doesn't matter, it's the picture that does. The first one doesn't resemble the one in her mind – nor does the second, third, fourth … or eighth, or ninth – she slips out her arm and squeezes out two random files from the bottom of Laura's pile – nor does the tenth, eleventh … or fifteenth, or sixteenth – the sixteenth. The sixteenth does. It slightly does. By now, the huge array of faces has further blurred the already half-formed image of the man she had abstracted from her memory. Her fingers nervously trail down towards the last column.

**Prime accused: Grand Central Station Attack, 3/21/2004**

**Homicide:**

**Jack Evans, 4/24/2010**

**Tony Renner, 8/9/2011**

**Tracy Johnson, 5/3/2011**

Her eyes which have been till now unable to bear the constant gazing at the monitor and the drowsy pressure on them, suddenly open up in some sort of excitement. According to the theory she immediately makes, the criminals were taken from prison to OsCorp when they broke out on the way and began a violent brawl with the policemen. Gwen's eyes travel down to something written in bold at the very end.

**Criminally insane, served five-year term at Ravencroft Institute. Psychopathic, with zero sympathy. Should be handled with caution. **

Gwen nods to herself. She had been right, and Harry had been _mad_. Back then, if Peter had not arrived at the right moment, Harry would've been relishing a nice time today, sitting amidst the stars, right next to Jesus. She stifles a small laugh. That was cruel, she thinks.

'Somebody's looking for you, down at the reception,' says Laura, coming from the ground floor, clutching a bottle of water. She leaps into her chair and pulls out a new file and sighs.

In spite of the facts and theories raging inside her mind, Gwen gets up and walks her way towards the elevator. The ground floor is as noisy as it has always been, noisier with the speakers announcing the same thing on a loop, and is particularly crowded near the reception. But even amidst the Arab and Asian people, grim-faced fat businessmen, wanna-be scientists and security guards, she can easily guess out which one is looking for her.

It's _that_ lean, jacket-clad figure over the corner, with nerdish glasses that she sees after a long time, and a hand resting on the reception table, and that old camera perennially hung about the neck. There seems to be some awkward, uncomfortable conversation with the reception, seemingly in Spanish. Ah, smirks Gwen, the _Rodrigo Guevara-isms_.

As soon as Peter's eyes caught her, he abruptly turns his back at the receptionist and exhales a huge breath of relief. He comes up to her and says, 'Hey.'

Gwen wants to grin stupidly and break into a jig, but then assumes it's time to feign some anger she is rightly justified to. She folds her arms and rolls her eyes, and utters part-wearily and part-irritably, 'What are you exactly doing here, Peter?'

'I got a job!'

His happiness is contagious. A bit too soon the smile she has been fighting hard to put off invades her face. 'Really? Oh my God, where?' Gwen thinks she might even start screeching like a little girl on seeing a present, and she fidgets in an attempt to suppress her delight, given they are right now standing in the middle of her workplace. Peter too, knew better than to keep standing there on, with the receptionist's suspicious stares burning into his back.

'Let's get out of here,' he suggests.

'Sure.'

* * *

The New York air feels way fresher than before. She fixes her gaze, which had been somewhat dimmed and drowsy a while ago, at the rows of trees along the pavement, as they walk a few yards away from the tower detaching themselves from the hustle. 'Okay, now tell me!' Gwen grins, almost lifting up on her toes in excitement. Peter holds her shoulders to calm her down and keep her to the ground lest she goes flying up into the air. She takes a deep breath to settle herself. Ouch, her toes hurt.

Meanwhile, deep down, it also tugs one of the painful strings in her heart. An old familiar ache, reminding her that whenever happiness came by, trouble appeared out of nowhere. And _loss_ followed suit. Her smile fades a little, but she anyway puts the random thought aside.

'I got a job at the daily bugle. As a photographer.'

'Always knew you would,' Gwen laughs, 'and at least now you won't have to loiter around the city 24X7.'

'Maybe, working as a photographer I'll have to.'

'Ugh,' Gwen hangs her head in mock-disappointment, 'I'm devastated.'

"Don't be,' Peter chuckles, 'Actually, it's that incident at Times Square that got me the jobs. I was the only one who happened to have the clearest pictures.'

Now one _real_ surge of annoyance passes through Gwen's head. She grits her teeth, 'So Mr. Parker, we all were duelling in the dead of the night with a gunman, and you were having a photo shoot session with the criminals?'

'Er...' he looks around and feigns some deafness, 'I'm hungry. There was a sandwich shop round the corner, right?'

Sandwiches and the pile of records collide violently in her head. She suddenly divided into two. Peter or work. She checks her wristwatch. She had been working continuously for three hours. Her eyes need some rest. The work is repulsively boring. Laura can handle things alone for a while. Moreover, her stomach is growling in his favour. Peter or work. Peter wins, hands down.

Actually, the sandwich shop is much too far away than being round the corner. And Gwen had underestimated her hunger. Right now, the butterflies are somersaulting so hard in her stomach that she almost stumbles on the pavement. Peter insists to carry her in his arms. She declines. She says it's high time they don't resemble Romeo and Juliet. Peter snorts.

'Why are you so tired and unenthusiastic today?' asks Peter, sounding frustrated and at the same time, laughing, as they settle facing each other at a table near the window. The shop is sparsely populated, a chair here and a chair there; the cashier is drooling at the reception and no other staff is at sight. It seems an incredibly dull day for everybody.

'It's the work...'

'Why, what happened at work?'

'It's Laura. It's because of her I've spent three precious morning hours feeding criminal records.'

'Criminal records? Why?

'Dunno... she said we're going to be paid a huge sum of money...'

'For entering records? Bah, I wish I worked at OsCorp too,' he sighs.

'Nah, it's for keeping us tight-lipped,' says Gwen, turning the menu card over, 'I mean, the kind of things OsCorp does, testing them is barely legal. After all, they're humans too. But I guess they ran away. You know, I found that man in the records, the one you hung up in the air.'

'Whoa, don't make me sound like a barbarian...'

'But seriously,' she persists, 'OsCorp is getting shadier day by day.'

'I bet Dr. Connors was pressurised to do all that stuff as well.'

Even mentioning of the man who had once been her mentor launches an uncontrollable surge of hate at the pit of her stomach. Gwen's jaws tighten and her fists clench, and she doesn't want to comment whatever Peter spoke just now. Her whole body gives a slight forward jerk with the rush of fury, and her mind's eye flashes back to the day at the front porch of the church, the day when she realized how alone and helpless in this world she has become.

That man is a murderer. It doesn't matter whether or not he was forced to be one. After all, he didn't think twice before mauling Peter, he didn't think twice before impaling her father, he didn't think twice before raising the claws at her. She feels something sickening inside. She isn't hungry anymore. She feels like retching.

It is because of that man every evening she looks up at the door only to remember that her father doesn't exist anymore, it is because of him Peter has to kill a part of himself to break a promise he knew he won't be able to keep, it is because of him the police has got a fine reason to blame Peter for everything and are out for his blood, it is because of him she bears a cold fear, a continual worry in her eyes that one day the monster will break out of the prison and she will lose Peter too. Then why does he even feel like mentioning that man? Why?

'Talk about something else, Peter,' she says in a low, dark voice, burying her face into her arms so that he doesn't notice the tears that have popped up from nowhere, 'Or I'm going.'

* * *

Harry Osborn is one messed-up kid. Or that's what he thinks about himself.

It is late afternoon, and he is sitting on armchair looking at a bunch of blank sheets of paper, scratching over a paperweight and virtually doing nothing. He glances up at the ceiling and heaves a sigh, trying not to think about the abrupt ache that is right now tearing through his head.

Harry hates New York. He hates the mansion that is etched like a deep scar in his memory. He hates the huge empty rooms where every whisper echoes like a scream. He hates that dark shady lighting across the hallway. The third room to the left that was where his mother died. And he held her hand – cold, pulse less – thinking she would wake up, if not now then soon enough. But she never did. He still thinks she will. He hates to face it – the whole spell of logic, the truth.

He gropes on the table for a bottle of water. He finds one. It doesn't help. The headache just seems to increase. He pulls open a few drawers. The pills should've been there. He finds them. Plucks one. Gulps some water. Calms down.

He still remembers when he used to open his eyes from sleep in those sunny NYC mornings. Peter's apartment happened to be two lanes apart, a smallish red-bricked beautiful house. Last day, when he checked over there, he found a tall, different building instead, and got to know the house had been in shambles and was demolished a year after Peter's parents died in that _infamous_ plane accident.

Those sunny mornings were a lot different than what they are now. They were fresher, calmer. They had a distinct nostalgic scent they now so miss. There was a park in front of Peter's house. The park had a white pole mysteriously planted in the middle. He remembers this was where Peter and he decided what they would become when they grow up.

Peter always wanted to become a scientist. Harry wonders why he didn't grow up to be one. It was so obvious. His parents were scientists. And he was exceptionally bright. And innovative. Maybe that was why Harry's dad had eyed him with a _keen_ interest, something he had only for him, and not for Harry. Or probably it was because both Harry and science thought they are _pathetic_ for each other.

If he goes and searches down the basement, he will surely find the remains of what was once a caramel guitar. There was a time when he loved it more than anything else. But he smashed it with his own hands. For he was being impulsive. And jealous about the special attention his father gave to Peter. And angry, about being treated like dirt, like a worthless piece of rag; about being subjected to those cold disappointed stares only because that day in front of the while pole, he decided _too_. He decided to become a musician.

One of the jarring disturbing truths is that his father had never loved him. Or never loved him _enough_. It is a truth that was so mundane, hurtful, and at the same time so deep down his blood that cannot help but accept it. He had guessed it long ago. He had said it numerous times in his sleep. It is, now, a _fact_.

So many times he has tried to disregard it, to try and force himself into believing that he has misunderstood his father. That his father was just hardened form outside, but he cared all the same. Or that he was just too stressed out. Or that there was some unexplainable reason that he hadn't turned back that day when his eight-year old son was bawling in the living room, bleeding from both his knees. But he _cared_ all the same.

This getting suffocating. He pushes back his chair and gets up to his feet. The steps feel so heavy. It must be the effect of the pills. He begins his path through the hallway.

He moves back a step as soon as he is about to pass by his father's room. Inside, his father, bed-ridden and withered and disfigured like a plant in winter, is speaking to a visitor, a man on the couch. Harry looks in through the hinge of the door. His heart gives a _hard _throb.

Harry sense like bursting into the room. It is _that_ man. There is no question of confusion. Harry is dead sure. The same sleeveless jacket. The ring shaped tattoo on the arm. The long ragged scar on the face.

'This is insane,' the man speaks to Harry's father, with somewhat of a great concern. Apparently no one is aware of Harry eavesdropping the discussion.

'You must remember what you owe me,' his father replies in his weak throaty voice, 'I m giving you time to decide.'

'All right, Mr. Osborn,' he sighs and pats on the bed before leaving, 'I will think about it.'

Harry slides behind the large open oak door holding his breath as the man as the man ignorantly walks through the hallway towards the living hall. As the thudding footsteps slowly die out, he decides to enter the room. His mind is all of a sudden buzzing with questions. The nasty way the gun rested on his forehead is still _so _vivid in his memory. A chill runs down his spine.

His father has slipped inside the bed sheet again, his eyelids trembling as he closes them and droplets of sweat cover his pale, wrinkled forehead. Harry opens his mouth to speak, but at first chance nothing really comes out. He wants to ask a lot of things – what his father was doing with that man, why that man is running loose at the first place, whether or not he has the slightest idea that this man had almost shot his son a week ago.

But he isn't quite sure how it might turn out. Will he shout? Will he despise Harry for being too nosy? Will he, for a while, listen? Will he, for once, be a little worried when he learns the truth about that man? He doesn't know how to begin. He is at a sudden loss of words.

'Dad?' he comes up after a few long minutes.

There is a slow disinterested grunt from his father's side, meaning he should continue. His father doesn't open his eyes but it seems he is, in fact, _listening_.

'Do you know that man?'

The only response his father makes this time is to turn sides and pull the bed sheet over his head. Harry assumes that gesture marks the end of their conversation.

Harry feels something burning inside his chest. He takes a deep breath and leaves the room. He feels disgusted at himself. How did he even fantasize his father will listen to his words, let alone allowing him to intrude in his own matters. The conversation went way worse that he expected. It was embarrassing, disgusting and infuriating. That is, if it can be even called a _conversation_.

He half-heartedly picks up the phone ringing in his pocket.

'Hello, Harry?'

It is a female voice. He thinks it is so very familiar but he can't quite recollect where he has heard it.

'Yeah?'

'It's me, MJ.'

'Oh,' he exhales, as the burning knot in his chest seems to loosen, 'hey.' Harry never knew she had his number. Though it's a darn good thing she does. For some inexplicable reason, he doesn't just want to be a _neighbour's old friend _to her.

'I was thinking - if we could -'

She is fidgeting and stuttering on the other end. Harry feels his collar heat up.

'Yeah, like - if we could meet up somewhere again -'

MJ gives a short nervous laugh. Harry is sure she is mentally thanking him for completing this very sentence for her.

'Where did you get my number, MJ?'

'You - you gave it that night.'

Even a remembrance of that night sparks sudden heat waves that travel from one end of the network to another. For a few seconds they are quiet, trying to pull out some loose threads to continue talking. But Harry's mind is just too jammed up to think.

'I hope I didn't misbehave, I was so drunk I barely remember anything...'

'Oh no, you didn't do much... other than offending Coldplay.'

'Ha, Harry laughs, 'my bad. By the way, MJ, will you like to...'

'Yes?'

_Say it, say it, Harry. _His mind is screaming. There are hot red patches on his cheeks. He must've turned maroon. But he realizes, she isn't the one to finish the sentence this time. She's waiting. _Be a man, speak out your heart. She's interested in you, buddy, or she wouldn't have called. Just say it._

'Harry, Harry are you there?'

'MJ, will you like to go out for dinner tomorrow?'

'Sure.'

Finally, he has a reason to smile.

* * *

**Sorry for all this shit I'm doing. **


	4. Chapter 4

'Oh.'

That wicked, _wicked_ dream again.

Gwen tosses and turns restlessly on her bed. There is that uncomfortable sensation again grasping her tight, like being a fish out of water, struggling to breathe. The vague patch of moonlight that falls beside her pillow is so _distracting_. She tries to sleep again. Fails. She isn't even remotely drowsy. She rises a bit and gropes right for the iPod. Plugs in the earphone and tries again. It doesn't help even a tiny bit. It only aggravates the _fearful knot_ in her stomach so much that she feels she needs to vomit it out so as to be free.

Gwen rushes to the bathroom. Even though she's _sick_ and _tired_ of her own idiosyncrasies, there seems some adamant _fear _smouldering inside her body that won't be put to rest until she sees Peter right here, right now, in front of her own eyes. How many times is she going to tell her it was just a bad dream? A _recurrent_ bad dream?

Shall she call him once? She looks up at the clock. It's well past 2:00 pm. It will be _inhumanly_ rude to call now. And even if she does, what is she going to say? Why did she call? She was – _missing him_? She had spent an awful lot of time with him at the sandwich shop today. Then, why? Because – because she had a bad dream? She can imagine the whole conversation play up in her mind and end with Peter saying, 'What's _wrong_ with you, Gwen?'

She walks across the room under the light so dim that it makes the apartment feel hauntingly empty. She goggles at the mirror. She looks like a horror story – large, groggy, sleep-deprived eyes with a tinge of redness in them, the bedraggled mess of blonde hair flaring up somewhat like that of an electrocuted man, the pallid bloodless lips, and the shadows of bookshelves and shoe-stacks at the back on the wall that warp themselves into _creepy _silhouettes and figures. She feels like running out of the house onto the city roads. It's just too spooky to stay in.

_Thud._

Gwen jumps and chokes at the same time. The sound comes from something hitting the fire escape. And since the noise is way too dull for a random _meteorite,_ she almost knows what it is.

It's Peter, as usual, on the other side of the glass panel, crouching in a way only he can. His head rests on the glass pane and the corners of his lips are turned up into a tired but sincere smile.

And so she gets him. Right here, right now_. _In front of her eyes. But his showing up only tightens the _fearful knot_ ad she feels like sprinting to the bathroom again to retch. She is momentarily stunned. She wishes if she could have the meteorite instead.

Because it has happened only once in her life that he's up there on her fire escape and is not _hurt_.

The sudden heave of urgency gives her a slight forward push as she hurtles towards the fire escape. Her hands fidget over the glass panel. She has suddenly forgotten how to pull it up. Finally she does, and he climbs over the ledge. His knees buckle and he falls over the couch so weakly that it makes her temple give a sickening throb.

'You okay?'

It's Peter who asks. Surely, he didn't miss the absurd way her fingertips trembled over the glass panel. Gwen purses her lips, white-faced, her eyes fixed instead on the blood oozing out of his right arm, staining the couch. Her fingers anxiously trace over the bleeding wound and she demands, to know what she doesn't quite want to, in a low unconfident stutter.

'Peter, wha – what happened?'

'I don't know,' he says, 'I think I fell.'

His tone is so casual that it's annoying. Gwen dashes left and yanks open a couple of drawers in savage haste. She runs her eyes around for the gauze. She's sure last time she kept it somewhere here. There – she finds it. The reel has almost ended. She remembers she bought it just _last_ month. However, there seems enough to wrap the wound a good number of times.

Peter feverishly pulls off the spandex. While the upper part of his suit dangles around his waist, he suddenly loses all the strength and rolls down the couch, falling almost _lifelessly _on the carpet. He breathes heavily, his eyes more close than open, and remains as motionless as a rag doll, his arms spread wide like that of a _dead_ man.

The gauze drops from Gwen's hands and tumbles down to an altogether different direction. She clasps her face so hard that the nails leave marks on the skin, and wide-eyed in horror, she lets out that pitched, horrified whisper which she had, all this time, tried so hard to suppress.

'_Peter!'_

She waits for a response from him – a movement of a finger, a nod, a groan, a gasp – _anything_ – but when nothing comes, the hysteria only multiplies. She wants to run up to him, jerk him wake, but for a while she can't move. She feels all frozen and wobbly and imbalanced; her legs are glued to the ground and sense as if made of jelly. Her fingers are white and numb and paralysed. And every glance at the bleeding wound sends a new chill down her spine.

Gwen can't help but notice the stark resemblance this has to her murky, vicious dreams. It has always visualised this way – Peter lying motionless, bleeding, one side of his face layered with grease and soot and abrasions – not in her room, but somewhere down a random alley in a blackened, burnt-out, _dead_ city.

Slowly, though, she picks the gauze and walks up to him, and nudges him at the shoulder, an unexplainable ugly lump forming in her throat. It is that he still breathes and his heart pounds with full force drives in some relief into her tense, shivering self.

'Peter?'

'I'm alive,' he responds this time.

'I can see that,' she says as she cleans the wound, 'how did this happen?'

'Uh,' he sighs and pauses for a long moment, 'I can't really remember...'

Gwen bites her lower lip and makes a face she does only when she's extremely annoyed. 'Do you remember your name?' she asks curtly.

He chuckles, 'I'm not very sure.'

'Stop kidding, Peter. I'm serious.'

'All right,' he nods and muses for a while, then says, 'I think I _do_ remember my name.'

This time Gwen renders him a long and dangerous stare and pulls out the gauze maniacally even as the fragile cloth tatters at certain places. Peter appears positively unaffected at first, though a whole minute later, he reflects back a weak, exhausted, snarky but surrendered look, 'Okay, okay, I fell. I fell and I hit my head, that's why I'm wee bit delirious now. And some shard of glass went into my arm. That's all I remember, honestly.'

'You owe me a reel of gauze,' Gwen half-laughs and half-murmurs, 'This one didn't even last a month.'

'No, it wasn't my fault,' Peter argues,' It wasn't my fault last time you dressed me up like a mummy.'

She gives a playful, sarcastic laugh, 'Did I? Then you could've as well done it yourself. You see, I'm tired of pretending to be your Florence Nightingale all the time.'

'Yeah, but still you did,' he smirks and closes his eyes, 'and I haven't slept since an age. Let me sleep.'

The bandaging is over, so Gwen ties a knot, and pulls out his other good arm straight and perpendicular. She rests her head over and lies beside him, snuggling towards his bare chest as close as she can. Lazily, she digs her face into the curve of his neck. His arm under her head feels like a rock-hard pillow.

'You're so _hard_,' she comments.

'Oh you know _nothing_.'

Gwen goes red.

'Er...' Peter starts but doesn't end, and instead wraps his arm round and pulls her closer until their bodies are pressing against each other. She can feel the firm sculpted muscles of his torso that otherwise remain hidden under the veil of being a skinny loser. She knows his strength; if he curls his arm a little more and puts in some pressure, he can _break_ her in a second.

But it is more like her fragile self feels all the more secure than scared with _that_ arm around her. It's that very _sensation_ – the sensation of his heart throbbing right beside hers, and of the adrenalin surging through their blood at almost the same time. The spearmint breath, the warmth, the sweat, the scent – she can sense it all.

The two breaths – his steady, hers uneven – draw heavier and closer until they finally become one. Their lips touch – but that's where the fantasy dies – as only a few seconds later, Gwen pulls apart and turns away.

'What?' he gives a hushed, confused whisper.

She thinks it's time she should tell him about her agonisingly spiteful dreams. She has to let it out, unless the panic aggravates to violent proportions and she wants to succumb to insanity. Unless she wants the _fearful knot_ to get tighter and tighter until it strangulates the life out of her. She _has_ to let it out. Anyhow.

She turns at him again. She gazes at his eyes – he is _there_, ready to listen to whatever she is about to say – but she only fumbles. Half, incomplete words, syllables which hold no meaning come out of her mouth. Now she knows what he actually meant when he said, 'It's hard to say,' that night at the rooftop. As time passes, it only turns more difficult. And staring at his eyes – intent, inquisitive, worried – she helplessly digs her face in her palms and breaks into tears.

'Gwen,' he tenderly pushes back the hair falling on her face, 'What's wrong?'

She sniffs and she confesses. Finally.

'I'm scared.'

'Why?'

Why. She doesn't know. She doesn't answer. And maybe, he doesn't expect it, either.

'It's okay, it's okay,' he strokes her hair and kisses her forehead, and she crumples up like a child left in the cold, sobbing and shivering.

'You don't need to be scared, do you?' I'm always there by your side.'

She barely hears him; only feels his breath on her face. The breath full of endless energy, of determination to do good no matter what the cost is, of a treacherous and painful guilt, and of _love_. Unconditional love. She wants it to go on. She knows she might not be a _hero_, but if someday something happens, if death comes by, she _will_ dart in front of him. For dying doesn't matter if she can only lie crumpled in his arms like this, hand in hand, her breaths tangled into his.

But yes, growing old together won't be too bad either.

* * *

**Before you want to kick me for this utterly small chapter, I'd like to state that I added a lot to the third and uploaded it twice so I'd advice to check it out once lest you don't want to scratching your heads later. And maybe, I'd do the same with this chapter too. I know, it's irritating but something is better than nothing.**

**Also thanks for scrolling through the story and reaching down to read this, because, you know, whenever I try to write some serious fluff, I suck.**


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